Present-day vehicles not only function as a transportation means but also provide various information to a driver during the running in conjunction with various electrical and electronics technologies. Recently, remarkable progress of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) industry enables to easily receive traffic information via not only the radio and the TV but also a mobile phone, a radio pager, a portable computer, and an on-board telematics system, which changes our daily life.
As such, diverse driving assistance devices for various services are installed in the vehicle. To carry out the given functions, the driving assistance devices should detect a change of an external physical quantity and make an appropriate determination. For example, an airbag system should detect a change of the impact exerted to the vehicle. When the detected impact exceeds a preset threshold, the airbag system can determine the dangerous impact level and protect the driver by activating the airbag.
Naturally, all of the assistance devices commonly include a vehicle sensor to detect the change of the physical quantity. The sensors widely used nowadays include an inertial sensor such as accelerometer and Gyroscope.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional sensor data processing apparatus for the vehicle, and FIG. 2 illustrates a conventional signal processing method of a pressure sensor for the vehicle.
The conventional vehicle sensor data processing apparatus 10 of FIG. 1 can include, for example, a temperature compensation optical sensor 11, an amplifier 12, a noise rejection filter 13, an Analog/Digital Converter (ADC) 14, and an I2C interface 15.
The conventional vehicle sensor data processing apparatus 10 adopts a simplified digital control system controlled via the temperature compensation optical sensor 11, the ADC 14, and the I2C interface 15.
In the conventional vehicle pressure sensor signal processing method of FIG. 2, normally, the signal processing of a pressure sensor 27 connects three lines 23 including power, signal and ground, to an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) 21. Herein, the reference number 22 indicates a pull-up or pull-down resistor of the ECU 21, the reference number 24 indicate a pressure chamber, the reference number 25 indicates a nozzle, the reference number 26 indicates a PCB, and the reference number 28 indicates an IC for the signal conversion.
Meanwhile, Korean Patent Registration No. 10-520465 entitled ‘INTEGRATED SENSOR SYSTEM FOR VEHICLES’ filed on Nov. 20, 2002 describes a system which unifies several sensors used in the driving assistance devices in the vehicle, into a single integrated sensor, which is explained by referring to FIGS. 3A and 3B.
FIG. 3A illustrates the conventional integrated sensor system for the vehicles, and FIG. 3B illustrates a location of the integrated vehicle sensor system inside the vehicle.
Referring to FIG. 3A, the conventional integrated sensor system 30 for the vehicles includes a sensor means 31, a data conversion means 32, a processor 33, and a communication means 34.
The sensor means 31 measures a first physical quantity as the most basic physical quantity. The sensor as the measurement means can employ an accelerometer or a Gyroscope. According to the type of the physical quantity to measure, the accelerator accelerometer or the Gyroscope can be used alone or in combination. The measured data is generally in the analog format.
The data conversion means 32 converts the first physical quantity input from the sensor means 31, to data in the format processable by the processor 33. For example, the data conversion means 32 converts the first physical quantity measured in the analog format, into the digital data format.
The processor 33 generates second physical quantity data by processing the digital data converted through the data conversion means 32. For example, the second physical quantity can include a location, an acceleration, an angle, an impact quantity, or a posture.
The communication means 34 sends the second physical quantity data generated by the processor 33 to the driving assistance devices in the vehicle. Hence, the driving assistance devices can receive their necessary physical quantity data via the communication means 34 in the vehicle, determine the physical state of the vehicle based on the received information, and perform a necessary function. The communication means 34 can adopt various data bus standards developed and applied as the on-board LAN. For example, Media Oriented System Transport (MOST), IDB-CAN, and IDB-1394 can be applied to the communication means 34.
FIG. 3B depicts the location of the integrated vehicle sensor system inside the vehicle. The integrated sensor system for the vehicle is in the center of the vehicle 40.
This conventional integrated sensor system for the vehicles unifies the sensors which are scattered over the several driving assistance devices in the vehicle to perform the same function, thus preventing the redundancy of the sensors and drastically reducing the number of the sensors.
Korean Patent Registration No. 10-708385 entitled ‘SMART MODULE FOR IN-VEHICLE SENSOR NETWORK’ filed on Mar. 27, 2006 is explained by referring to FIG. 4.
FIG. 4 illustrates the conventional in-vehicle sensor network smart module.
Referring to FIG. 4, the in-vehicle sensor network can be configured by connecting an in-vehicle network 50, an in-vehicle sensor network 90, a multimedia terminal 70, and a control means 80 through the in-vehicle sensor network smart module 60.
The in-vehicle network 50, which is a network deployed in a commercial in-vehicle product, is a system for controlling and connecting electronic parts, an ECU, a sensor, and an actuator over the network. The in-vehicle network 50 can be, for example, Control Area Network (CAN), Local Interconnect Network (LIN), J1850, MOST, FlexRay, Time Triggered CAN (TTCAN), and Time Triggered Protocol/Class C (TTP/C).
The sensor network 90 includes sensors 92, and sensor clustering nodes 91 for receiving sensing data generated from the sensors 92 and forwarding the sensing data to the in-vehicle sensor network smart module 60.
The sensor 92 is installed inside the vehicle to detect the status data of the vehicle and data relating to the driving state.
The sensor clustering node 91 includes a sensing data reception module 91a for receiving the sensing data from the sensors 92 newly installed in the in-vehicle network, and a sensing data transmission module 91b for sending the received sensing data to a gateway.
The in-vehicle sensor network smart module 60 filters and receives the sensing data generated from the sensors installed in the vehicle, and the sensing data in the in-vehicle network 50 over which control signals for controlling the components of the vehicle are sent and received. The in-vehicle sensor network smart module 60 can include a data collection module 61 which filters and receives the sensing data from the in-vehicle network and receives and aggregates the sensing data from the sensor network added to the vehicle, a data management module 62 which converts the aggregated sensing data to a format to be output from the multimedia terminal 70 or the control means 80, and a data transmission module 63 which, when a control signal of the sensing data request is input from the multimedia terminal 70 or the control means 80 added to the vehicle, sends the sensing data converted or processed according to the control signal to the multimedia terminal 70 or the control means 80.
The conventional in-vehicle sensor network smart module can be applied regardless of the protocol used in the vehicle network system, and operate various expanded devices using the sensing data with flexible compatibility.
On the one hand, according to the recent electronic vehicles, a great number of sensors is installed in the vehicle and various communication protocols including CAN, FlexRay, and MOST are used.
However, about 40 sensors are used in a midsize vehicle available, about 20 sensors are used in a compact vehicle, and more than 80 sensors are used in a luxury car. Accordingly, it is difficult to efficiently manage the increasing vehicle sensor data with the conventional methods.
Moreover, information sent from diverse vehicle sensors is exchanged as the physical analog signal among the electronic parts, which is inapplicable to an application system such as telematics or portable multimedia device. That is, various data is exchanged during the communication between the diverse vehicle sensors and the vehicle application system in different formats and manners. In addition, as the number of the vehicle sensor increases, it is harder to transmit and manage the data.